Chapter 387

Chapter 387

Seventh Master and I had witnessed the entire Tan family Massacre Case.

The process had been extremely brutal and bloody, yet it revealed none of the truth behind the event.

If anything, we had even more questions.

Unable to consider them all at once, we hurried to the platform and examined Tan Wannian at close range.

After brutally murdering his family, he still held the weapon. He remained calm and wooden, staring at the Basement ceiling without any indication of what he was thinking.

Perhaps he was thinking nothing at all. If he retained the ability to think, he could never have treated his family so viciously.

Seeing his vacant face, I could not resist calling, “Old Tan…”

Seventh Master sighed. “This isn’t a ghost domain or a Ghost Wall. It’s only a mirage-like Spectral Replay. You can’t even touch him.”

Unconvinced, I reached out. My hand passed straight through Tan Wannian.

His body was merely projected light and shadow.

“He’s clearly unconscious,” Seventh Master said, shaking his head. “But perhaps that’s a blessing. If he were aware while personally murdering his family but unable to stop himself, the agony would destroy him.”

I pointed out that Tan Wannian had wanted to become immortal. He had even left a final letter asking his brother to keep the family’s bodies in the Basement for a week.

That letter already suggested Tan Wannian had intended to kill his family. In his mind, however, killing them was for their own good.

Yet that created another contradiction.

If he killed them through his own thoughts and consciousness, why did his dominant hand change?

Why did his face remain wooden throughout?

And why had his eldest son reacted that way?

“Those contradictions don’t necessarily conflict,” Seventh Master said thoughtfully. “Suppose he wrote the letter and truly considered killing his family, but the consciousness that committed the murders just now wasn’t his. How could both facts be reconciled?”

I thought briefly and understood. “The timing. He wrote the letter before the incident, not on that day. But we have no way to know how long before.”

“If he truly wanted to kill his family, he would have chosen a gentler method. Who could treat his own relatives so brutally?”

At dinner, before the others lost consciousness, Tan Wannian had shown none of the excitement or tension of someone about to execute a plan. He had remained calm and thoughtful. Perhaps he was considering how to take his family into immortality, or how to kill them gently.

Whatever his plan, he had not intended to carry it out that day.

Yet the murders occurred, and another strange person had been present: Tan Wannian’s eldest son.

If Tan Wannian never planned to kill them that day, he would not have drugged the drinks.

“The eldest son drugged them…”

I told Seventh Master, “He was the one who wanted the family dead. He must have controlled Tan Wannian and made him kill. But how did he do it?”

Seventh Master shook his head. “We only saw the incident itself, not his reason. How could we know much more?”

“He controlled Tan Wannian and made him kill his own son as well. Why didn’t he run? Was he the one who wanted immortality?”
Seventh Master stared at me. “Why do you keep asking me? How would I know…?”

“This Basement was where Tan Wannian studied immortality.”

“There should be clues here. Let’s look around.”

We searched the Basement for other clues.

But this was not a ghost domain, merely recorded images from the past. We could not touch anything and could only observe rather than search through objects.

The most conspicuous object was a furnace.

It resembled the pill furnaces shown in television dramas and had been crafted with exquisite care, probably by a specialist. It showed how deeply obsessed Tan Wannian had become. His understanding of immortality was superficial and extravagantly theatrical.

Books covered the floor. Since we could not touch them, we could only read the titles of those on top.

Like Lin Jinhua’s Resolving Fate Patterns, they had no authors and deliberately advertised their purpose in their titles. They looked extremely crude.

But to Tan Wannian, who desired immortality above everything else, they were treasures.

He had probably spent a fortune collecting these dubious books.

Whenever a wealthy person loved such things, someone would deliberately manufacture them to take his money.

I suspected Tan Wannian’s toxic pills came from reading too many superstitious books like these.

If immortality pills were truly that easy to refine, the First Emperor of Qin would have conquered the planet by now.

The Basement offered no useful clues, mainly because we could not touch anything.

I saw the letter but could not read its contents. I also saw several notebooks, but their pages remained hidden.

Finally, I returned to the platform to inspect Tan Wannian.

What I saw startled me, and I hurriedly called Seventh Master over.

“Seventh Master, he’s… he’s dead…”

I stared in disbelief.

Tan Wannian’s pupils had dilated. The light gradually faded from his eyes, and his chest no longer moved.

He was dead…

How had he died?

Had he simply expired in complete silence?

Seventh Master frowned. “Police performed an autopsy but found no cause of death. It seems he truly did just stop breathing naturally…”

We looked around for a ghost in the Basement.

Yet from the moment we entered the estate, we had detected none.

Ghosts were not especially terrifying to us. What frightened us was the possibility that something worse than a ghost lurked here.

Seventh Master pondered. “Now we can be certain that some supernatural existence is here. It altered the magnetic field and silently killed Tan Wannian. I suspect it was also involved in the explorers’ disappearances.”

I swallowed. “Could it silently kill us, too…?”

As I spoke, a hand suddenly emerged from beneath the platform. Seventh Master and I leaped aside in fright.

Before we could react, it seized Tan Wannian’s shoulder and dragged him straight into the platform.

Our eyes nearly popped from their sockets.

The platform was made of stone!

Tan Wannian vanished before us, while the platform remained perfectly intact.

The sight reminded me of Mr. Tan’s dreams.

In those dreams, a hand always dragged Tan Wannian away…